Using the Prediction Model to Prevent Incidents and Near-Misses

As someone employed in the electric utility industry, would you be willing to consider that there may be incident prevention strategies yet to be discovered and tested? Are you open to the idea that a better model could exist to create change in our industry – change that could reduce or even eliminate significant injuries and fatalities (SIFs)?

If so, I encourage you to read further.

Here’s a logical equation many of us were taught in school: If A equals B and B equals C, then A equals C. Tell me, do you believe the organization you work for takes a logical approach to workplace safety? This article will examine some of our industry’s current logic regarding incident prevention and whether there’s room for improvement.

Consider the logic Native Americans used in their attempts to fend off solar and lunar eclipses hundreds of years ago. Ancient Cherokee people, for example, believed an eclipse occurred because a frog was trying to eat the sun or moon. They would dance and make lots of noise to chase away the frog. It worked every time – the sun or moon would always return.

Before we understood the science behind them, eclipses and other natural events like earthquakes terrified the planet’s human inhabitants, who often blamed them on witchcraft or sins they had committed. This is one example of a fundamental attribution error, a common mistake many of us make repeatedly throughout our lives. When humans don’t understand an event’s true cause, we can be quick to place blame, and we often attribute it to someone or something other than ourselves.

Assessing Our Logic: The Job Briefing
“Post hoc, ergo propter hoc” is a Latin phrase that translates to “after this, therefore because of this.” Put simply, it’s the logical fallacy that occurs when a person believes a second event was caused by an earlier first event – even though there’s no other evidence to suggest that.

You may have witnessed this fallacy in action, both in your personal life and at work. For example, has a near-miss or incident ever occurred at one of your jobsites that was later attributed to the job briefing delivered earlier in the day? If so, what happened next? Did management make changes to the job briefing document?

If you’re nodding your head, know that you’re not alone. When a near-miss or incident is attributed to a job briefing, logic indicates that the briefing should be amended to improve future outcomes, right? That may explain why nearly every organization in our industry has a different briefing document. Think about that for a moment: All of us use the same tools to, say, tighten a nut – but there’s no standardized briefing document. Does that seem logical to you?

Acknowledging SIF Statistics
The typical structure of a near-miss program is strikingly similar to the typical structure of an incident analysis program. Both programs focus on studying work-related events to determine causal factors and lessons learned. To perform an analysis, an incident must have occurred. Likewise, a near-miss can only be investigated and analyzed after it’s happened.

These programs help us search for and identify event causes, which are critical endeavors. Still, it’s painful to recognize that industry SIF statistics have not meaningfully changed in more than a decade. This begs the question: Could we – as safety leaders – be making attribution errors, just as humans have done throughout documented history? As I noted earlier, those errors are more common than many of us realize.

In the past 10 years, the response to nearly every SIF event has included an incident analysis, a safety stand-down and changes to the organization’s job briefing document. We are skilled at identifying lessons learned, but the persistent statistics are flashing red lights signaling that we need to adjust our approach. As an industry, it’s imperative that we improve our ability to translate lessons learned into actionable changes at work.

How do we do that? Well, consider this: What if there’s more that we can do to prevent incidents and near-misses altogether? Instead of using the bulk of our resources to prevent recurrences, what if we used those resources to ensure incidents and near-misses never happen at all? That’s where the prediction model comes into play.

The Prediction Model
You may not feel comfortable with the connotation of the word “prediction.” Even so, if part of your work includes job planning and/or scheduling, you’re already making predictions about the future. Not convinced? Check out what some subject matter experts have to say:

• According to a TED Talk delivered by psychologist Lisa Feldman Barrett, “Predictions are basically the way your brain works. … Predictions are the basis of every experience you have. They are the basis of every action you take.”
• In “The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals That Protect Us From Violence,” security specialist Gavin de Becker writes the following: “If we can’t imagine it, we can’t predict it.”
• Neuroscientist Tali Sharot, in “The Optimism Bias: A Tour of the Irrationally Positive Brain,” offers this notable quote that all safety managers will want to keep in mind: “We don’t prepare for anything we don’t believe can happen. So, if we can’t imagine it, we can’t predict it. And if we can’t predict it, we will do nothing to mitigate it.”

Organizations that highly value and prioritize the safety of their workforce must continuously strive to improve their ability to predict jobsite hazards – particularly those that have the potential to severely injure or kill employees. The energy wheel is one of the industry’s most well-known prediction models; discussion of each wheel section before work begins can trigger worker concerns, which are predictions of unwanted potential outcomes. A dismissed concern could lead to a near-miss or an incident.

Triggering the Activation Phenomenon
Does your organization actively encourage field crew members to share their concerns with each other before work begins? If not, leaders may be interested in reading Atul Gawande’s “The Checklist Manifesto,” which details the results of a study conducted in the operating rooms of The Johns Hopkins Hospital.

During the study, medical professionals who were scheduled to work together met before their patient’s operation. Each person stated their name, role and any concerns they had about the procedure ahead. In doing so, the group experienced what’s called the “activation phenomenon,” which created stronger connections among the group members – and made them 80% more likely to speak up when they noticed a problem during their patient’s operation.

Here’s the thing: Once a person expresses a concern to the rest of their team, it’s nearly impossible for them to forget about or “unsee” it. It also becomes easy to imagine the outcome of that concern if it’s not addressed, making the team much more likely to identify a mitigation strategy.

Remember, the more often crew members discuss their job concerns, the more opportunities there are to mitigate or eliminate hazards for the safety of our workers and the public. Over time, these conversations also typically improve team dynamics, helping to create and sustain a psychologically safe environment in which workers feel comfortable sharing their thoughts. Leaders might even consider printing and hanging posters that read, “At [Company Name], we listen to and share concerns – because a concern is a prediction of an unwanted outcome.” This psychologically primes workers, encouraging them to actively engage in the practice.

Testing and Evaluation
Now it’s your turn. Directly after the next daily job briefing, stand in a circle with your team. State your role and any concerns you have about the job and then ask each team member to do the same. Eye contact is strongly encouraged during these conversations as it’s been proven to synchronize brain waves, improving connections among team members.

Try this tactic every day for a month. Each week, your team should test, evaluate and provide feedback based on their experiences. At the end of the month, ask if they’ve found any value in the practice. If they have, the team now has another tool they can use to prevent incidents and near-misses.

Our frontline workers are the ultimate market in which to test safety improvement tactics. They have skin in the game plus the skills and experience to notice potential hazards that others may not. Imagine an environment in which the entire workforce is always on the lookout for safety concerns. Perhaps those bad things that could have happened will never get the chance to happen at all.

About the Author: Bill Martin, CUSP, NRP, RN, DIMM, is the president and CEO of Think Tank Project LLC (www.thinkprojectllc.com). He has held previous roles as a lineman, line supervisor, project manager and safety director.